It's a multi-billion dollar franchise that has spawned some of the biggest movies of all-time, with a fifth due this year.

Yet, it turns out, Keira Knightley did not anticipate Pirates of the Caribbean's success, with the Elizabeth Swann actress apparently suggesting it would be a "disaster" before the first film was released.

Love Actually's Richard Curtis, ahead of last Friday's (March 24) sequel Red Nose Day Actually, recalled filming the 2003 romantic comedy, which Knightley shot ahead of the first Pirates movie The Curse of the Black Pearl.

"When we shot the film, I remember Keira Knightley saying that her next project was 'some pirate thing - probably a disaster'," the director wrote in the Radio Times. "That turned out to be Pirates of the Caribbean, in which Bill Nighy was also later a be-tentacled Davy Jones."

He added of other successful cast members: "Andrew Lincoln had never come across, let alone killed, the Walking Dead. Chiwetel Ejiofor hadn't been a slave for five minutes, let alone 12 years."

Knightley didn't too badly out of the Pirates franchise in the end, and went on to star in the next two sequels. However, she didn't return for 2011's On Stranger Tides, and will not be back for 2017's Salazar's Revenge / Dead Men Tell No Tales.

Co-star Orlando Bloom will return to the fold as Will Turner in the next movie, alongside regulars Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush.